By almost any measure, the trumpeter swan is impressive. The heaviest and longest native bird of North America, it dons grey plumage in its youth before emerging stark white after about a year. The swans make their way to the Sequim-Dungeness area each November.
At Kirner Pond, about a mile west of the intersection of Woodcock Road and Sequim-Dungeness Way, trumpeter swans roost on the water for safety — “so the coyotes don’t get them,” said Bob Phreaner, conservation co-chair for the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society.
Instead, swans are struggling with a different danger: power lines.
Since December 2014, at least eight trumpeter swans have died and uncounted others have been injured after flying into the lines located just west of the pond, according to Shelly Ament, a local biologist for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).
“In the past 10 years, the most significant cause of death to trumpeter swans in the Sequim valley is collisions with power lines,” Ament noted in a video posted with the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society’s Project Swan Safe, a fundraising campaign to bury the power lines near Kirner Pond to give swans a clear path to and from their winter habitat.
Local bird advocates started a GoFundMe fundraiser that kicked off on Jan. 25; it quickly raised more than $65,000, meeting the fundraisers’ goal for estimated costs of coordinating a power line burial project with Clallam County’s road department and the county’s Public Utility District No. 1.
“Everything from $16 to thousands,” Phreaner noted.
The community support has paid off.
Led by John Acklen, a recent retiree from the electric power industry who helped negotiate with various groups — including internet providers who use the power poles that would need to be moved, as well as Kirner Road neighbors for easements — swan advocates will soon see their project become reality.
Ken Wiersma, president of the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society, noted on July 1 that the last property owner agreed to sign the easement that allows the project to proceed.
“The project is planned to begin in the second week of August and is expected to take about a week if all goes as planned,” PUD engineering manager Mike Hill said this week.
Kirner Pond problems
Kirner Pond stretches about 200 to 300 feet and is located just north of Woodcock Road. Power lines west of the pond generally pose the problem.
“We’ve had collisions when they take off in the west,” Phreaner said.
“The birds will take off into the wind, (to) get lift,” he said. “These trumpeter swans can weigh at least 25 pounds, maybe more. In a short stretch like this — it’s about a football field — they need to gain elevation pretty rapidly in order to climb these 30-foot-high wires.”
Swan eyes are located on the sides of their heads, well-suited to spot predators and other dangers. However, that leaves the waterfowl with poor forward sight that can make depth perception and judging distances more difficult, OPAS representatives said.
In addition, the swans’ feathers and feet are wet as they leave the pond, making it tough to gain altitude, Wiersma said.
“When their large wingspans and body mass strike the fixed power lines and they fall to the road, swans suffer physical injury and not infrequently short circuit power lines, resulting in electrocution of the birds,” OPAS representatives said.
Phreaner noted a number of power line strikes, including five between Nov. 10 and Dec. 11, 2020. He estimated he spent the dawn hours for a 100-consecutive-day stretch to record the swan strikes.
OPAS enlisted the services of local videographer John Gussman, who captured footage of swans striking the power lines; see footage at olybird.org and vimeo.com/494868019.
Other efforts
In a Feb. 15 letter to PUD commissioners, Wiersma wrote that the group and the PUD has been working well for years with Hill in addressing the swans’ safety.
“Mike and his staff have repeatedly helped evaluate the problems, placed visibility markers on lines, and provided us information on possible engineering solutions toward reducing swans injury and death,” Wiersma wrote.
At the request of state wildlife officials following a swan electrocution on Dec. 9, 2020, PUD staff placed 50 “diverters” — regularly spaced devices that make the lines more visible to birds — but one day after the diverters were placed, a swan struck the lines and suffered serious injury, Phreaner said.
“PUD actions to more clearly mark the power lines with bird diverters, while helpful, have not resolved the problem. Burying the utility lines becomes the optimal feasible solution to eliminate this problem,” Wiersma wrote in the Feb. 15 letter to PUD commissioners.
Commissioners that same month agreed in a resolution to put funding toward the project, both with in-kind services and dollars. Hill said this week the PUD is contributing $7,500 in direct funds and $6,000 in project management costs.
OPAS representatives also requested the project be completed this summer, when the swans are on their nesting grounds in Alaska and Canada.
“Our records show that the swans will leave for their nesting grounds by mid-March and return here to over-winter this November,” Wiersma wrote. “Doing this project in summer also yields better ground conditions for workers and equipment.”
Ament noted that she and Martha Jordan from the Northwest Swan Conservation Association worked with Clallam County PUD to develop the Avian Protection Plan. Created in 2016, the 23-page document is designed to help protect swans, bald eagles and other birds by outlining policies and procedures to maintain bird safety and mitigating bird deaths.
“Trumpeter Swans were addressed in this plan. However, more efforts are needed to prevent further injuries to these impressive birds that are federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act,” Calkins noted in his message to PUD commissioners.
State wildlife officials had some funding set aside for Project Swan Safe, Ament said, but since the GoFundMe campaign raised enough for the overall project, WDFW’s contributions will go to the expansion of the nearby Dungeness River Audubon Center.
“WDFW is working collaboratively with the Dungeness River Audubon Center and Northwest Swan Conservation Association to infuse information and storylines at the DRAC’s amazing interpretive center that are relevant to swan conservation and education here in the Dungeness Valley, in broader western Washington, and our connections to the rest of the Pacific Flyway,” WDFW’s westside waterfowl specialist Kyle Spragens said.
“WDFW’s staff from the District, Watchable Wildlife and the Waterfowl Section are working together to secure funds to contribute to this effort.”
Swan counts
OPAS partners with WDFW and the Northwest Swan Conservation Association each winter to conduct weekly surveys of swans in the Sequim-Dungeness area. The project, which began in the winter of 2011-2012, sees volunteers collect data about swan numbers and habitats used for daytime feeding and night roosting.
In late autumn 2020, OPAS, with a crew of about 30 experienced and new volunteers, counted 163 trumpeter swans, about 15 percent of which were juveniles.
OPAS recruited “site monitors” in 2020 to watch nearby wetlands for overnight swan use. They keep daily notes on numbers and timing of arrivals and departures, OPAS representatives said.
OPAS is the only non-governmental team in the Pacific Northwest conducting regular swan surveys and generating data of sufficient quality for agency databases, the group said.
For more about OPAS’s swan surveys, see olympicpeninsulaaudubon.org/swan-survey.
